Know more about your veggies
A few tips about how to get “total nutria-veg-value” out of vegetables!
If vegetables are cooked carelessly much of their food value is lost. Throwing away the cooking water also wastes valuable minerals, salt and vitamins. Use vegetables as fresh as possible. If you grow your own vegetables do not gather them until you actually need them. Scrub root vegetables and scrape them before or it tough skinned peel thinly. Remove the dark outer leaves of cabbage and use them shredded in soups or stews. They contain more of vitamins and minerals salts than the more tender inner leaves.
Slice root vegetables and shred green ones. Break cauliflower into springs. They cook more quickly. Green leafy vegetables should be bought only when they are needed as they tend to decay and lose their freshness if kept for long. Keep all the vegetables in the fridge in separate bags. Don’t boil vegetables in cold water. Always use boiling water with salt in it. An addition of a pinch of cooking soda to the greens while boiling speeds the cooking soda to the greens while boiling speeds the cooking process. Avoid the use of cooking soda s it robs vegetables of vitamins especially vitamin-c. use of tamarind and lime helps in conserving the goodness and brightness of vegetables. Never add butter or cream or spices to boiled vegetables until all the water is drained away. Use stainless steel or mud vessels for cooking vegetables.
Stale vegetables can regain the freshness, if you soak them in lime juice. If the vegetable is burnt, place a slice of bread on top of the cooked vegetables and cover. Remove the slice after some time and the burnt odor will vanish.
Vegetables should be cooked until barely tender, because then they have a better appearance, flavor and retain more food value than when cooked longer. While cooking green leafy vegetables don’t stir too much which will destroy the nutritional value. When boiling vegetables put in a couple of bacon rinds and remove before serving.
The rinds give better flavor than if boiled on its own. When boiling cauliflower tie them in muslin. This way cauliflower will remain whole. If you want to re heat or boil a few vegetables. Wrap them in separate parcels with little butter and pop them into a pan of boiling water.
Never cook any green vegetables in an iron pan, the green will turn black. Vitamins and minerals of green vegetables lie generally close to the skin and therefore they should be peeled thinly to avoid waste of vitamins. Vegetables that are to be eaten raw should be immersed in an equal quantity of vinegar and water for at least fifteen minutes; this will help to kill bacteria present in your vegetables. Use enough water to keep the pan from burning. Cook vegetables with lid on the pan. Boil briskly for ten to fifteen minutes giving the pan an occasional shake. Serve the vegetables at once; keeping them hot or reheating will only destroy the vitamins.
Adopting the above mentioned tips will only improve the nutritional value of your vegetable intake while helping you maintain your health.
